As it is distinguished from all the known species of _Lysimachia_ by this circumstance, we have named it _bulbifera_ instead of _stricta_, under which it appears in the _Hortus Kewensis_.
Some Botanists, whose abilities we revere, are of opinion that the trivial names of plants, which are or should be a kind of abridgment of the specific character, ought very rarely or never to be changed: we are not for altering them capriciously on every trivial occasion, but in such a case as the present, where the science is manifestly advanced by the alteration, it would surely have been criminal to have preferred a name, barely expressive, to one which immediately identifies the plant.
The _Lysimachia bulbifera_ is a hardy perennial, grows spontaneously in boggy or swampy ground, and hence requires a moist soil. It flowers in August.
TRADESCANTIA VIRGINICA. VIRGINIAN TRADESCANTIA, OR SPIDERWORT.
_Calyx_ triphyllus. _Petala_ 3. _Filamenta_ villis articulatis. _Capsula_ 3-locularis.
TRADESCANTIA _Virginica_ erecta lævis, floribus congestis. _Linn. Syst. Vegetab. ed. 14._ _Murr. p. 314. Sp. Pl. 411._
ALLIUM five moly Virginianum. _Bauh. Pin. 506._
PHALANGIUM Ephemerum Virginianum Joannis Tradescant.
The soon-fading Spiderwort of Virginia, or Tradescant his Spiderwort. _Park. Parad. 152. 5. t. 151. f. 4._
Under the name of _Spiderwort_, the old Botanists arranged many plants of very different genera: the name is said to have arisen from the supposed efficacy of some of these plants, in curing the bite of a kind of spider, called _Phalangium_; not the _Phalangium_ of LINNÆUS, which is known to be perfectly harmless: under this name, PARKINSON minutely describes it; he mentions also, how he first obtained it.
"This Spiderwort," says our venerable author, "is of late knowledge, and for it the Christian world is indebted unto that painful, industrious searcher, John Tradescant, who first received it of a friend that brought it out of Virginia, and hath imparted hereof, as of many other things, both to me and others."
TOURNEFORT afterwards gave it the name of _Ephemerum_, expressive of the short duration of its flowers, which LINNÆUS changed to _Tradescantia_.
Though a native of Virginia, it bears the severity of our climate uninjured, and being a beautiful, as well as hardy perennial, is found in almost every garden.